Nobody has any idea what an iq test measures, but they have always known that the youngest boy in a class always gets the highest score. (The test was developed for boys, not girls, at a specific French academy.)
If you take a legitimate iq test they will not tell you what your score is, but there are plenty of wildcat tests going around. The surest sign that you took a wildcat test is that your score was well above a hundred.
Before you go for an IQ test you could try consuming a lot of omega 3 oil for a month or two which will help unclog the arteries in your brain so the dormant brain cells can get more oxygen and come back to life again. Also do some caffeine just before the test and avoid fatty foods which makes your brain drowsy.
Not by taking practice tests, no. I don't think so. You have to train your brain to start working and working different parts again. There was a game i liked to play when the Nintendo DS came out. It was called Brain Age. It did silly things, like display the names of colors, but the color of the word would not match the written word. i.e. It might say "blue." And, it would tell you to click on either all the red words, or on the word "blue,' or when you see the color blue. Obviously, the first time you do it, you're going to have issues. Your brain is trained to make sense of things based by the written word. The more you do puzzles like that, the quicker and more accurate you'll be. IQ tests are similar. They're only partially measuring aptitude. They're mostly measuring your brain's ability to look for obscure patterns and make sense of things when they don't make sense.
So, if you take a test, you aren't really working your brain. You'd have to train it.
I would argue that most people here have higher IQs than the general population. Why? Because we challenge ourselves. In the serious answers, we're thinking critically and often questioning ourselves and others. We're tearing down our own thought processes. Even in the sillier questions, we gravitate to the uncommon. We delight in the unexpected. Sites like this could well be considered a form of brain training. But, so can things like Scrabble or Soduku. Any kind of puzzle that forces you to think is training. You can improve an IQ score, but not just by testing.
Depends on what you mean by "consciousness." I like reading about it from a scientific standpoint or a psychological standpoint. Not so much from a spiritual standpoint.